I have recently started working with my own cast bullets and don't now understand what happened with this load workup.
Started slow with some cast bullets that were supplied by a member on another forum and got to a point tat they were working very well in both of the 380 pistols I loaded these for. The bullet is from a Lee 356-102-R1 mold.
From that point I purchased my own mold and started cast with it. After talking with the person that cast the originals I thought I duplicated everything pretty close. The only deviation was the alloy. He used range scrap, I used cow's.
When I finally got to the range to try these I started having all sorts of feed problems with the S&W EZ.
So today I pulled the dies apart and cleaned everything and pretty much started over. Only this time I started with a few powder coated bullets as a baseline bullet.
Started with a few sized cases and checked fit in the chamber of both guns, all good. Then flared the cases w/o a powder measure in the Lee die. From there the case would start into the barrel but would not fully seat as expected. I then took the PC bullet and started seating with the die adjusted with just enough crimp so the case would seat into the barrel. Then slowly started working the bullet down.
This time I was able to plunk this bullet into the Witness barrel at .985" instead of the .960" I had come to before. Then I tried this in the EZ barrel and it wouldn't quite seat all the way and I could tell the bullet was hitting. From there I seated down to .970" and this bullet was plunking easily in and out of both barrels. So I quickly set up another exactly the same and it to plunked just fine so I tried to shorten it up some more to try and get to the .960" that I had been using. I got to .965" and again this bullet would no longer plunk and would hang up when I turned it upside down. At .960 experienced the same thing.
Now I have no idea why this is occurring other than at .965" it is too deep and is bulging the case at the base of the bullet. Though I have shot over 100 rounds loaded at .960" in the EZ that came from those sample bullets I had received.
Started slow with some cast bullets that were supplied by a member on another forum and got to a point tat they were working very well in both of the 380 pistols I loaded these for. The bullet is from a Lee 356-102-R1 mold.
From that point I purchased my own mold and started cast with it. After talking with the person that cast the originals I thought I duplicated everything pretty close. The only deviation was the alloy. He used range scrap, I used cow's.
When I finally got to the range to try these I started having all sorts of feed problems with the S&W EZ.
So today I pulled the dies apart and cleaned everything and pretty much started over. Only this time I started with a few powder coated bullets as a baseline bullet.
Started with a few sized cases and checked fit in the chamber of both guns, all good. Then flared the cases w/o a powder measure in the Lee die. From there the case would start into the barrel but would not fully seat as expected. I then took the PC bullet and started seating with the die adjusted with just enough crimp so the case would seat into the barrel. Then slowly started working the bullet down.
This time I was able to plunk this bullet into the Witness barrel at .985" instead of the .960" I had come to before. Then I tried this in the EZ barrel and it wouldn't quite seat all the way and I could tell the bullet was hitting. From there I seated down to .970" and this bullet was plunking easily in and out of both barrels. So I quickly set up another exactly the same and it to plunked just fine so I tried to shorten it up some more to try and get to the .960" that I had been using. I got to .965" and again this bullet would no longer plunk and would hang up when I turned it upside down. At .960 experienced the same thing.
Now I have no idea why this is occurring other than at .965" it is too deep and is bulging the case at the base of the bullet. Though I have shot over 100 rounds loaded at .960" in the EZ that came from those sample bullets I had received.